South Korea’s Bithumb Exchange Shuts Down Trading Operations in 11 Countries
South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and the fifth largest in the world ‘Bithumb’ has recently announced to shut down trading operations in 11 different countries. These 11 countries have been blacklisted under the Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) list and hence all residents from these countries will be blocked from trading on Bithumb.
The list of 11 countries blacklisted includes: North Korea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Vanuatu and Yemen.
The official announcement from the exchange arrived on Monday, May 28 where it said that it will no longer accept new user registrations on its platform from these 11 countries with immediate effect. The existing users from these nation have also been given a timeline till 21st of June to withdraw all their funds after which their accounts will be disabled.
South Korea’s inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said that these countries failed to comply while falling short of taking necessary measure to deal with illicit activities of money laundering and terror financing.
Bithumb said that the cryptocurrency exchange believes in maintaining a lot of transparency in its dealing while complying it with international regulatory measures. Banning these 11 countries will help the exchange to avoid conflict with the local as well as global financial authorities.
A Bithumb spokesperson said: “The Bithumb team will voluntarily impose strict policies and cooperate closely with local financial authorities to increase the transparency in the cryptocurrency market and protect investors. With progressive voluntary policies, Bithumb will improve the global standard of cryptocurrency exchanges.”
On the other hand, the exchange has also strengthened its internal policies for anti-money laundering based on the recommendations of the authorities from the Korean Blockchain Association and the South Korean government. Additionally, the exchange has also asked foreign users to comply with its own mobile verification process to make sure that the users are not deceiving the platform by providing false personal information.
Experts say that the latest measures from Bithumb have been influenced from the several money laundering incidents that recently took place in the Japanese cryptocurrency market.
Earlier this month, Japan’s most popular newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported that millions of dollars have been siphoned off and laundered using three anonymous cryptocurrencies Zcash, Monero, and Dash. This report triggered the Japanese government to soon restrict the use of these digital currencies.
One of the government officials told Mainichi that “It should be seriously discussed as to whether any registered cryptocurrency exchange should be allowed to use such currencies. It’s a typical money laundering scheme. In a way, I’m not surprised. If you are going to do something illegal, then everyone knows to use the ‘three anonymous siblings.”
Japan’s regulatory watchdog - Financial Service Agency (FSA) said that other leading economies like the G20 need to take a decision in unison regarding the use and regulation of digital currencies.
The official said: “It’s nearly impossible for Japan to handle the problem alone. Even if trade is restricted to only domestic transfers or monitoring is enhanced, it’s still not enough to counter money laundering. It would be best if all the group of 20 industrial and emerging nations and regions (G20) would take the same steps toward prevention.”